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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Kaz <alethinon61 AT milwpc.com>, Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: nephesh mot
  • Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 04:44:19 -0700

On 24/08/2003 19:53, Kaz wrote:

Peter Kirk wrote:


On 24/08/2003 01:23, furuli AT online.no wrote:


2. A word dos have meaning apart from a context. If we asked a group
of people how they would understand the English word "soul," we would
get a whole range of different comments, but probably we would find
some elements which were common to most, or all comments.

I doubt it, unless you can find some common semantic element between the
Greek concept of an immortal part of the human being and a style of
music. The word "soul" with no context will trigger one meaning for some
English speakers and the other for some others.


Of course, any modern reader who thinks that the OT would be discussing a
20th Century form of music when reading the word "soul" in the Bible, cannot
be viewed as typical in reference to students of Scripture. People with
special learning needs deserve consideration, but I doubt that it is
necessary to "dumb down" the Bible to accommodate those who don't know the
difference between soul as a form of music and soul as a biblical concept.

Indeed. That's because the word "soul" is not being used out of context in the Bible. It is being used as part of a regular set of usages in a context, in accordance with what Jim West and others wrote about words being "meaningless without specific textual contexts".

On the other hand, many modern readers of the OT will tend to understand "soul" even in the biblical context in terms of a half-understood Greek concept of the immaterial and immortal part of the human. That is probably inappopriate for the Hebrew NEPE$, which is where we started this thread.


There are Bible translations that consistently render NEPE$ by "soul,"
and by looking up these passages, one can see that this is meaningful
- although it requires more mental exercise from the reader, because
he or she must do more interpretations - than when the word is
interpreted by the translators.

The trouble with this is that, even if we use accept your model, there
is minimal overlap between the fuzzy Hebrew concept of NEPE$ and average
English speakers' even more fuzzy concept of soul.


Here you have a very good point, for the average modern English speaking
person has had his concept of "soul" tainted by centuries of extra-biblical
teaching that is based more on Platonic dualism than anything else.
However, this is, in fact, a compelling reason for accepting Rolf's model of
translation, for his model allows Bible students to decide for themselves
whether ancient Jewish beliefs were a foregleam of Plato, or not.

Well, a few people will be capable of and motivated for study in sufficient depth to decide this for themselves, but most will tend to rely on their own understanding of the word in context, which is probably misleading. I think it would have been better to transliterate "nephesh" in an English text rather than use "soul", because that would force users to do their own research or refer to study notes rather than to insert their own probably inappropriate understanding of the word.

Another interesting point on "Dead Souls": this is the English version of the title of Gogol's novel in Russian (1842). Although Gogol's title is does not correspond to the current Russian Synodal translation (1876) in Leviticus 21:11, it would correspond to a literal translation as might have been in use in Gogol's time, and so might have been a deliberate allusion. The title is an oxymoron in Russian, even more than in English, as a soul is almost by definition something living. And the title seems to be a word play: the "dead souls" were both the deceased serfs who were being traded as a scam and the souls in the very Russian sense of morality and culture of those involved in the trade. (Well, that's a second hand summary, I haven't read the book!)

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/






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